Menards works out plans to build at old Walmart site

Specialty home-improve- ment retailer Menards is finalizing plans for the demolition of the old Walmart building near the Elm Road exit off state Route 5 with plans to build a new $8 million store in its place.

The location would be the farthest East for Wisconsin-based Menards, a big-box store that primarily competes with Lowe’s and Home Depot.

The announcement was made Monday by township officials.

The nearest Menards is in Mansfield, and the company also has a distribution facility in Holiday City, west of Toledo.

Bazetta zoning inspector Mike Mills said officials with Menards have offered an early estimate of 50 full-time jobs and 100 part-time jobs to be created once the store opens.

The company had approached Bazetta in January, and township officials had been working to attract Menards even before that time.

Menards conducted routine soil and structural tests on the property to check for contaminants, such as asbestos, and to ensure that a nearby plot of wetland would be unaffected by construction.

Engineering drawings and other plans are expected to be submitted to the Trumbull County Planning Commission as early as next week.

If all goes as planned, Mills said, demolition is expected to begin this winter and construction would begin sometime in the spring with a tentative opening date set for spring 2014.

A family-owned company, Menards has 270 locations across the Midwest.

Mills said he expects the store to be about 245,000 square feet, including a lumber storage yard. By comparison, that’s about 60,000 square feet morethan a typical Home Depot.